There are currently two calls for bloggers to share recipes that have caught my eye. One comes from Fiona Beckett who is asking bloggers for recipes suitable for students – not necessarily from our own student days but the kinds of dishes that will both appeal to students and suit their lifestyles and budgets. The other comes from the gorgeous Scandilicious who is running a competition looking for the kind of dish that can be cooked easily on a little campervan gas stove with just two rings and minimal washing up.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone and share with you a one pot, few ingredients, easy-peasy, inauthentic but tasty recipe is I created during my student days.

Throughout the day, I dreamed happily of the dinner I planned to make that evening, secure in the knowledge that I’d already done the shopping the day before and everything I needed was waiting for me in the shared kitchen in the student halls where I was living.

On getting home, disaster!

I’d intended to make myself a keema curry to my mum’s recipe but discovered at the last minute that some thieving utter bastard had stolen my minced beef from the communal fridge. A bit of milk, I could just about live with (though it took green food colouring to stop the thief who’d down entire pints during the night) but a whole packet of mince – it still makes me shake my head in disgust even now. And it wasn’t the cheap frozen stuff either.

Still, I was really in the mood for a good meaty curry, so what could I do? I really didn’t fancy trekking over to the supermarket again. In a flash of inspiration, I decided instead to use the sausages I’d bought for later in the week.

Genius! And thus was born my sausage curry!

The version below uses the same individual spices as my mum’s keema curry and is what I used for my sausage version. But I have also made it using ready-made curry powder when on holiday, and it’s still pretty good, so feel free to substitute if you like.

Recipe Notes

You can substitute any sausages you fancy but simple pork bangers work well.

Instructions

Heat the oil, add the cumin seeds and wait until the seeds splutter.

Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry until golden to medium brown, stirring regularly so that nothing sticks.

Add the turmeric, coriander and chilli powders and stir for 10 seconds to release the flavours.

Add the tinned tomatoes.

Fry until the oil separates - when dragging wooden spoon through the tomato and onion mix, a gap is left on the bottom of the pan and the oil seeps out of the mix into the gap.

Add the sausage pieces and fry until browned / sealed.

Cover and cook on medium for about 15-20 minutes.

Check once during cooking, adding a little splash of water if looking dry.

Just before serving, stir in the garam masala powder and salt to taste.

Note – this isn’t the most attractive of dishes on a visual level – as the pieces of sausages cook, the meat bulges out of the skin at the cut ends – quite frankly it looks a little obscene. But for good, filling, easy, cheap and bloody tasty food, you can’t beat it!

This looks brilliant though, definitely trying sausage curry, I still love a good studenty meal every so often.

We had such trouble with people stealing our food in third year, it was infuriating! I lost a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's once, I was livid! I whole tub!

Which halls were you in btw? I think you told me on Twitter a while ago but I forgot. I remember how Tesco/Costies were also so close and yet gradually came to seem so far away especially if you thought you already had everything you needed in.

Oooh this is such a good idea and will do nicely instead of the usual staple of spicy sausage casserole. I'm not a huge fan of sausages on their own, but do like them casseroled (and [probably curried).

A friend of mine is launching his range of Indian sausages next week, called….bangras (love it). http://bangras.com/ Bangra curry, perhaps?

Kavey I love the recipe, especially instructions to “wait until seeds splutter”! It doesn't seem odd at all to me that you would substitute sausage for mince meat but then in Germany they have championed the currywurst for a long time 🙂 Thanks for entering both competitions with one genius recipe, will definitely be making this m'dear…

I was looking for something to do with left over cocktail sausages from Christmas and remembered that in my student days we used to make sausage curry. Google threw up your recipe which is a lot more authentic than the one we used to make. Great flavours and set to become a family favourite. Well done.